


What's In A Name

by Sister of Silence (Orcbait)



Series: An Age of Heroes [3]
Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Assassination Attempt(s), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 14:59:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1108219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orcbait/pseuds/Sister%20of%20Silence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arlette joins her 'brother' Adeptus Custodians on one of their Blood Games, though she didn't fully grasp what it entailed exactly she understood what she believed to be the most important aspect: someone was trying to assassinate the Emperor of Mankind and they had to stop them!</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's In A Name

**Author's Note:**

> A 'Fiction Friday' prompt, which suggested I write about Arlette's happiest memory from childhood - and this is it! Especially the end. ;)

If the assassin was successful, it would be her fault, His blood would be on her hands as surely as if she had wielded the weapon herself. Arlette scowled with the full force of her fourteen years standard as she sat perched on the oselit crenulations of the ruined Mashki Gate pillar like a raptor scanning the fields for prey, her gaze sweeping across the monument to botanical aesthetics sprawling beneath her. She would find the culprit. She _would_.

The Hanging Gardens of Nineveh were one of the Inner Courts, adjacent to the Great Observatory, and it comprised an Achaemenid pardaiza of truly magnificent splendour. Exotic trees and flowers reached up from between snaking aqueducts towards the grand, crystalline dome above where wispy, micro-clouds had drifted in from the nearby Hegemon dome and filtered Sol’s already watery rays. It was always pleasantly warm here despite the inhospitable climate of the Himalazian plateau, for due to its great dome it acted as a green house. Birds twittered in the trees, fish splashed in its many ponds and butterflies both great and small fluttered from flower to flower.

To Arlette, the garden comprised greenery and waterways like any other. She was fond of it, but it was nothing out of the ordinary to her. Perhaps, that was simply because she had grown up here, among its overgrown ruins and soaring aqueducts. She had swum in its ponds, had played beneath its ancient statues and climbed upon its high aqueducts. It held no secrets for her; she knew every nook and cranny like no other. And there was someone here, someone who did not belong.

She was participating in what her Custodian brothers had called the 'Blood Games'. She hadn't understood everything Vendatha had told her, but that didn't matter for she had understood what she felt was the most important part: there was an intruder sneaking about the Inner Palace, an assassin send to murder the Emperor! Arlette's scowl turned into a determined pout. She would find the culprit. She _would_.

The Emperor was currently at the Great Observatory; she could feel the press of His psychic presence against her like the tides, alternately pushing and pulling at the fabric of her mind. If the intruder wanted to make his – or her! - way to the Emperor, they would have to come through the gardens. They would have to come past her. And she would stop them. She _would_.

It was not long at all before she spied a suspicious character moving about the greenery, staying far too much to the shadows of the main aquaduct to be considered normal. Tall, broad in the shoulders, a man likely. Robed, but in the white of an off-duty Custodian. Clever.

Arlette rose and darted from the pillar unto the railing of the minor aquaduct behind her, leaning low as she ran across it's narrow height. If she kept this direction she would be able to scale the main aquaduct and follow the culprit from above. Though she had no proof yet, she had already decided this was the one. No one clung to the shadows like that unless they had something to hide!

When she arrived at the waterway intersection she scaled up the decorated arch nimble as a little chamois. She perched atop one of the gargoyles and scanned the area as she loosened the blade sheathed at her wrist, letting the handle drop into her palm. She did not have to wait long before the robed man appeared. He stood directly below her, observing his surroundings judging from the way his head moved from left to right. He did not look up. And why would he?

Arlette waited quietly for the right moment as she tensed, ready to jump as she briefly touched the fist in which she clenched her dagger to her chest. Just a few more steps...

He frowned as a pebble skidded down beside him. Too late did he glance upward, for a moment later the young Custodian neophyte landed squarely on his shoulders, her fall giving her the weight and momentum to barrel down the much larger man.

He rolled over but she held on tightly to the collar of his robes, ignoring the bruising force of his weight as they dropped down the stairwell he had just come from. Her fingers clenched around her dagger. She would not fail. How dare he come here uninvited? Violate the grounds with secrecy? Anger driven thoughts raced through her mind as they fell. She had found the culprit. She had found him and she would kill him. She kicked and struggled onto him the moment they came to a halt, pushing her knee into his neck and pinning him in a way his superior strength would do him little good. With a cry she stabbed the knife down.

It was in the very moment the tip of the blade bit into the muscled flesh of his neck that she saw his face, and recognised him. Shock and reflex caused her to jerk the blade back, then renewed anger made her stab it down once more.

Suddenly, she was lifted up by her armpits and off of the robed man as if she weighed nothing at all. “That's quite enough of that,” Vendatha remarked, though not without amusement, as he put her down on her feet.

Arlette's gaze snapped from her guardian to her target and back. “Amon, he's--!” She started, pointing, dagger still in hand. There was a line of blood along the blade.

“Yes, you found him,” Vendatha said patiently. “Now put the blade down.”

“I don't understand,” Arlette replied, doing no such thing and instead pointing the dagger at him now, a pout unfurling across her features.

“Amon was on a Blood Game, and you found him,” Vendatha replied, frowning now.

“It means you won,” Amon clarified with half a grin as he got up. “I did not know you would be playing along or I would have kept an eye on the sky, little eagle.” He reached for her head and mussed up her hair affectionately.

“I won?” Arlette inquired, her expression brightening. “It was a game?”

Vendatha and Amon nodded. “A very serious game,” Vendatha answered. “But a game nonetheless. I explained you this.”

“Be proud, eh? I don't think many of our brothers can say they won the first Blood Game they participated in!” Amon remarked, always the more cheerful of the two. The Custodian was a first circle Captain, a soldier in a more direct sense than the always stern Companion Vendatha. “You'll have my name now too, don't embarrass me with it!”

A grin split onto Arlette's features when she realised she had just earned herself a name, just like her full Custodian brothers always did when they did something heroic. Her very first. “Truly?”

Amon nodded and was about to muss her hair up some more when the sudden air displacement of teleportation diverted their attention.

Arlette grinned broadly as she turned around to the new arrival, despite the suddenly almost nauseating levels of psychic press shoving at momentarily at her mind. “I won!” she beamed, holding the dagger in front of her by way of proof.

A smile flitted across the Emperor's unknowable features as she brandished the dagger at Him, it's dark steel stained with the blood of one of His most highly regarded guardian sons.

\+ Few win their first match. + He observed within her thoughts as He sank to his haunches, beckoning her.

“I did!” She returned happily as she all but skipped towards Him.

\+ Indeed.+ He agreed, His amusement at her enthusiasm almost tangible as He gently pushed the dagger being waved in front of His face out of the way.

“Did you see?” Arlette asked, a hopeful expression creasing through her grin for a brief instant. She hoped He had seen. She really did.

\+ Every second of it. + He assured her as He combed her tangled black hair out of her face with His fingers. + It was very clever to stay on high grounds. +

Arlette positively radiated happiness at the compliment, the dagger's handle now clutched in both hands.

A smile slowly solidified onto His features as he pressed a light kiss to her forehead. + Well done, little one. +

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of time and hard work went into the creation and publication of this story and as such it is very dear to me. I would love to hear what you thought of it! If you decide to share my story, please credit and link back to me. Thank you!


End file.
